<i>Dear Workforce</i> What Are Good Recruiting Metrics

March 26, 2003

Dear Talent-Hunter:Recruiting metrics are the building blocks upon which recruiting decisions,strategies, and plans are built. Without these items, it is impossible todevelop a meaningful recruiting strategy or determine the effectiveness of thatstrategy.Companies commonly rely on the following standard measurements of recruitingeffectiveness:Source distribution: Number of job applicants and new hires per recruitmentsource.Time-to-fill: Number of days between when a new job requisition is opened andwhen a candidate accepts an offer.New-hire quality: A performance assessment conducted during an employee'sfirst 90 to 180 days on the job.Customer Satisfaction: refers to the average hiring manager rating.Recruiting Cost Ratio: requires figuring out the total recruiting costs, andthen dividing by the total compensation recruited. Total recruiting costs aredetermined by adding up four cost areas:

Fixed-overhead recruiting expenses

Sourcing-advertising, recruiting fees, Internet-posting expenses

Signing bonuses

Travel, relocation, visa expenses

The sum of these four areas equals total recruiting costs. Total compensationrecruited is the sum of the annual base starting compensation of all externalpositions filled by recruiting. Once you've come up with these two figures, therecruiting cost ratio can be calculated by using the following equation:Recruiting Cost Ratio=Total RecruitingCosts/Total Compensation RecruitedRecruiting cost ratio replaces the more traditional and commonly usedcost-per-hire metric. It takes into account more factors that affect cost, suchas geographic differences, industry differences, functional differences, anddifferences in job level.SOURCE: Mike Sweeny, T. Williams ConsultingInc., Collegeville, Pennsylvania,Aug. 14, 2002. Staffing.org developed therecruiting cost ratio.LEARN MORE: Read How Can We Measure Our RecruitingCosts?The information contained in this article is intended to provide usefulinformation on the topic covered, but should not be construed as legal advice ora legal opinion. Also remember that state laws may differ from the federal law.